Verse: Srimad Bhagvatam 3.9.43-44
Transcription: Someshwar Prabhu
Edited: Jahnava Devi Dasi
sarva-veda-mayenedam
ātmanātmātma-yoninā
prajāḥ sṛja yathā-pūrvaṁ
yāś ca mayy anuśerate
SYNONYMS
sarva — all; veda-mayena — under complete Vedic wisdom; idam — this; ātmanā — by the body; ātmā — you; ātma-yoninā — directly born of the Lord; prajāḥ — living entities; sṛja — generate; yathā-pūrvam — as it was hereinbefore; yāḥ — which; ca — also; mayi — in Me; anuśerate — lie.
TRANSLATION
By following My instructions you can now generate the living entities as before, by dint of your complete Vedic wisdom and the body you have directly received from Me, the supreme cause of everything.
maitreya uvāca
tasmā evaṁ jagat-sraṣṭre
pradhāna-puruṣeśvaraḥ
vyajyedaṁ svena rūpeṇa
kañja-nābhas tirodadhe
SYNONYMS
maitreyaḥ uvāca — the sage Maitreya said; tasmai — unto him; evam — thus; jagat-sraṣṭre — unto the creator of the universe; pradhāna-puruṣa-īśvaraḥ — the primeval Lord, the Personality of Godhead; vyajya idam — after instructing this; svena — in His person; rūpeṇa — by the form; kañja-nābhaḥ — the Personality of Godhead Nārāyaṇa; tirodadhe — disappeared.
TRANSLATION
The sage Maitreya said: After instructing Brahmā, the creator of the universe, to expand, the primeval Lord, the Personality of Godhead in His personal form as Nārāyaṇa, disappeared.
PURPORT
Before his activity in creating the universe, Brahmā saw the Lord. That is the explanation of the catuḥ-ślokī Bhāgavatam. When the creation awaited Brahmā’s activity, Brahmā saw the Lord, and therefore the Lord existed in His personal form before the creation. His eternal form is not created by the attempt of Brahmā, as imagined by less intelligent men. The Personality of Godhead appeared as He is before Brahmā, and He disappeared from him in the same form, which is not materially tinged.
Thus end the Bhaktivedanta purports of the Third Canto, Ninth Chapter, of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, entitled “Brahmā’s Prayers for Creative Energy.”
LECTURE
So in this chapter Brahma’s prayers for creative energy have been described. When Brahma realized the mission of his appearance in this material nature, then Brahma started to pray to the Supreme Personality of Godhead that he be empowered with the necessary potencies so that he can fulfil his mission, which is to structure this universe.
In the beginning of creation, the universe was a hollow. It was just a shell, a bubble in the Causal Ocean. At that time the Supreme Personality of Godhead Krishna expanded Himself as Garbhodoksayi Visnu and entered into the universe. He filled up the universe with the water from His own body and then He lay down on the water on the bed of Ananta Sesa. From His navel a lotus sprouted and Brahma, the first created being in this universe, was situated on that lotus.
THE TRANSCENDENTAL QUEST
In the beginning Brahma did not know who he was, what he was supposed to do or where he came from. So that means, Brahma in the beginning of creation was in ignorance. Even Brahma, who is the greatest of all living entities in the universe, was in ignorance at the time of his appearance. Therefore, it says by birth everyone is born in ignorance. By birth everyone is a sudra, janmanä jäyate çüdraù, but, saàskäräd bhaved dvijaù, one receives second birth by the proper process of purification. The process of purification is to receive the Gayatri mantra; to receive transcendental knowledge in the form of mantra. By chanting the mantra, one becomes free from material bondage and can go back to the spiritual sky. So, Brahma at the beginning of creation was in ignorance. Then he endeavoured by dint of his own ability and tried to understand who he was and where he came from. But Brahma could not find out. He endeavoured for many, many years and with his inconceivable potencies he did all kinds of wonderful things. He climbed down the stem of the lotus and came very close to the navel of the Supreme Personality of Godhead in a search to find out who he was. He thought if he could find out where he came from, he would find out who he was and then he would understand what his mission was.
Although he came very close to the body of the Supreme Personality of Godhead he could not understand or perceive the Supreme Personality of Godhead. That actually proves the fact that with material eyes one cannot perceive the transcendental Lord or the transcendental reality. These material eyes are meant only for material perception. With these material eyes we can only perceive material things, but transcendental things are adhokñaja; they cannot be perceived by mundane perception. Apräkåta vastu nahe präkåta-gocara (CC 9.194), transcendental objects cannot be perceived with material senses. Knowledge is Revealed from Within the Heart So Brahma then became frustrated and afraid and so he came back to the lotus again and sat down. Then he received the instructions of the Lord from within his heart. Krishna instructed him to perform austerities and as a result of those austerities when he withdrew his senses within, he received the Gayatri mantra from the Supreme Personality of Godhead. By chanting the Gayatri mantra, he perceived the Lord. Krishna appeared to him and gave him the catuḥ-ślokī Bhāgavatam.
This catuḥ-ślokī Bhāgavat is the root of transcendental knowledge; Srimad Bhagavatam compressed in just four verses. The catuḥ-ślokī Bhāgavat was revealed in the heart of Brahma, tene brahma hådä ya ädi-kavaye muhyanti yat sürayaù (SB.1.1.) In the beginning the Supreme Personality of Godhead directly imparted this knowledge unto Brahma in the form of the catuḥ-ślokī Bhāgavat. As Srila Prabhupada mentions here, in this chapter Brahma’s prayers are actually revealing the essence or analyzing the purpose of catuḥ-ślokī Bhāgavat. Also, Srila Prabhupada is making the point, that from this verse and chapter of Srimad Bhagavatam it becomes very clear that the Supreme Personality of Godhead existed before the creation.
MAYAVADA PHILOSOPHY – DOOMED TO BE DESTROYED
Krishna, as the Mayavadis think, is not a product of maya. Mayavadis, the impersonalistic followers in the line of Sankaracarya, consider that the form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is material. Ultimately everything is niräkära, nirviçeña, niñupti: everything is without form, without potency, without variety and without any qualities. So that is the concept of the Mayavadis; the absolute truth is Brahman without any form, without any qualities or without any self attributes; the form of the Lord and His incarnations, avataras, are the manifestation of Brahma in the mode of goodness. In the material nature, prakrti, there are three modes: goodness, passion and ignorance. When Brahman takes form in the mode of goodness then that is the incarnation of the Lord and Brahman in the mode of passion and ignorance takes the form of the jivas. When the jivas become free from the influence of the modes of passion and ignorance and become situated in the mode of goodness, then the jivas can also become Narayana. But ultimately Narayana will also become Brahman. This is the concocted theory of Sankaracarya.
LORD CHAITANYA ENCHANTS SARVABHAUMA BHATTACARYA
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu smashed that theory when he had discussions with Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya. In Chaitanya-caritamrta Madhya lila, sixth chapter, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu very wonderfully defeats this concept. Mahaprabhu told Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya that those who consider that the form (vigraha) of the Supreme Personality of Godhead is material, and that his transcendental form is not sac-cit-ananda, full of knowledge, eternity and bliss, such persons are atheists. Veda nä mäniyä bauddha haya ta’ nästika (CC 6.168), because the Buddhists do not accept the Vedas, they are atheists, nastikas. Vedäçraya nästikya-väda bauddhake adhika, but to establish the theory of atheism, giving proof from the Vedas, that is even worse than Buddhism, and that is Mayavada.
Mahaprabhu said that the Vedas accepts the theory of pariëäma-väda, the theory of transformation, but Sankaracarya did not accept pariëäma-väda. First of all, Sankaracarya created an argument saying that Vyasadeva is wrong: vyäsa—bhränta bali’ sei sütre doña diyä ‘vivarta-väda’ sthäpiyäche kalpanä kariyä (CC 6.172.) Vyasadeva, who is an incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, came to establish and reveal the Vedas by simplifying it for ordinary people. But disregarding pariëäma-väda, the theory of transformation, Sankaracarya established the theory of vivarta-väda, or the theory of illusion. Then Mahaprabhu said, mäyävädi-bhäñya çunile haya sarva-näça (CC 6.169): if anyone listens to the commentary of the Mayavadis he is doomed. But finally, Mahaprabhu said that Sankaracarya is not to be blamed, because he established this theory according to order of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Acäryera doña nähi, éçvara-äjïä haila, ataeva kalpanä kari’ nästika-çästra kaila (CC 6.180), Sankaracarya is not to be blamed because he is just an order abiding servant, but those who listen to his commentary and accept his theory of Mayavada, they will be in trouble--not only in trouble, but they will be doomed to extinction.
Truths of Transformation - The Inconceivable Nature of the Supreme Lord The difference between pariëäma-väda and vivarta-väda has been very wonderfully analyzed by Baladeva Vidyabhusana in Govinda bhasya. He pointed out that pariëäma-väda is a transformation theory. Actually, in the beginning of this chapter also, Brahma said to the Lord that: You are one, but You transform into this material nature. So that theory is accepted-- material nature is a transformation of the energy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Lord does not transform Himself, but His energy transforms into this material nature. That also has been established in Brahma-saàhitä (5.45)
kñéraà yathä dadhi vikära-viçeña-yogät
saïjäyate na hi tataù påthag asti hetoù
Kñéraà yathä dadhi vikära-viçeña-yogät: just as milk is turned and transformed into yogurt, so that is an example of the transformation theory. Similarly, Krishna’s potencies are transformed into material nature. An analysis of how this transformation takes place has been given very elaborately in Śrīmad Bhagavatam.
Chaitanya-caritamrta also explains that there are two considerations: upädäna and nimitta. Nimitta means cause and upädäna means ingredient. The causal transformation is prakrti and the ingredient for transformation is pradhana. Due to the interaction between them or due to the influence of the modes of material nature, different types of transformation take place; in the mode of goodness, there is vaikärika ahaìkära (egotism in goodness), then in the mode of passion there is taijasa ahaìkära (egotism in passion) and in the mode of ignorance, tämasa ahaìkära (egotism in ignorance.) This is how the whole material creation actually becomes manifested.
In the beginning of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam also this has been explained: tejo-vāri-mṛdāṁ yathā vinimayo yatra tri-sargo 'mṛṣā (SB 1.1.1) The material world is actually a transformation of the ingredients of material nature: namely, tejo means fire, vāri means water, and mṛdāṁ means earth. Earth, water, fire, air, ether--these païca-mahäbhüta, five ingredients or elements of material creation, interact with each other and then different forms take place.